The first beach I ever stepped foot on wasn’t warm, or sandy, or anything you’d expect from the word beach.
It was Seward, Alaska – 1970.
I was eight years old, bundled in a winter coat, long pants, and tennis shoes, walking along a shoreline made of nothing but stones and shells. Not pretty seashells – tough, rugged, weather-washed shells that looked like they’d survived battles the ocean no longer remembered. The wind was sharp enough to bite. The sky hung low and gray. The water looked like polished steel.
And still – it was magic.
We walked the pebbled stretch, collecting whatever the tide had decided to surrender. We had a picnic, but I never once took off my coat. The cold wasn’t a mood; it was a setting. This was a beach that didn’t care whether you were there to play or not. It was Alaska, and it had better things to do than entertain an eight-year-old.
That was my first “beach.”
And for years, I thought that was what beaches were.
Until –
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – July, 1976.
A family vacation. A southern summer. And the shock of stepping into a completely different universe.
The sand was warm – actually warm – and soft enough that your feet disappeared into it. The heat was a living thing. The air smelled like sunscreen and salt and fried food. The water wasn’t steel-gray; it was rolling, breathing turquoise. And people were everywhere – laughing, splashing, tanning, burning, running, living.
It felt like someone had taken the concept of a beach and turned the saturation all the way up.
My first beach was cold, rugged, quiet.
My second was alive, loud, sun-soaked, and impossibly bright.
And that’s when I learned something about beaches:
They are not one thing.
They are endless variations of themselves, shaped by coastlines and climates and the people who walk them.
Just like memories.
Just like us.
So now I’m curious…
What was your first beach like?
Cold? Warm? Rocky? Crowded? Lonely?
Coated in fog or dripping in sunshine?
Traumatic? Transformative? Forgettable? Unforgettable?Drop your first beach memory in the comments below.
Let’s build a tidepool of stories – each one carried in from a different shore.